We are planning a trip WAY ahead (for October 2014), and at that time there will be 8 of us:
me, dh and 6 kids (ages 17, 16, 16, 14, 11, and 4) at the time of the trip

We need some time to save $$$

I have been to WDW with two of the kids, but the rest of them have never been, and given that some are HP fans and they are older, I thought a combo trip may be most appropriate. It is going to be the big family trip before many of them go to college.

I was thinking that it may be best to start at WDW for 5 days and end at Universal for two days (staying onsite because I bet a couple of the teens will want to do the Halloween Nights thing). And then was thinking that getting a rental van for the last few days for Universal may be the cheapest route to go in terms of transportation. Could I rent one at WDW and drop off at the airport?

Are there any other ways we could do this? I know it is already going to be $$$, but I do want to cut corners when it is reasonable.

We have used "Tiffany Towncar Service" for many years and have always been very pleased with their service.. In October 2012 we used them to transfer both from MCO to WDW and then back to MCO. There were 4 of us and they provided a SUV for transfer. They also have vans to provide transportation if needed. They have a web site to check rates and make a reservation. We will be using them again in October 2013.

Hi. We're flying in from BOS to MCO in August. We booked our trip through Disney but are going to US first so when we did our US reservations we did the roundtrip airport pickup option ($30 pp) and the transportation company will bring us to the Poly at Disney instead of MCO when we leave US. Then when we leave Disney the following week we'll use Disney's transportation to get back to the airport. All in all, perhaps not the most cost effective solution, but since we had to get from MCO to US anyway and could only book it as a round-trip, ehh, it worked for us and only took a phone call to setup the transpo to Poly!

We are searching for transportion options from WDW (Grand Floridian Resort) to Universal in Sept. Thanks to the info from this thread, I have gathered that my party of 4 adults would probably be best to just take a taxi from the WDW to Universal in the morning and then a taxi back to the resort. However, we still have a few questions and hope some of the experts here have the answers to them....

1. If the park opens at 9am (the parks' opening hours for Sept is still not released online yet), what time do you think we should leave the resort? Would 8.30am be okay or should we aim for an earlier time? I would like to be there just before opening.

2. Although it may be more cost effective to travel in a taxi for the four of us, I'm wondering how easy it would be for us to get a taxi back to WDW resort from Universal at the end of the day? We have considered to used a chattered service ie Tiffany towncar service etc (at least we know for sure that the return journey is booked at a certain time and we don't have to worry about waiting for or finding a taxi back to WDW but of course that is also less flexible compared to the taxi option).

We are searching for transportion options from WDW (Grand Floridian Resort) to Universal in Sept. Thanks to the info from this thread, I have gathered that my party of 4 adults would probably be best to just take a taxi from the WDW to Universal in the morning and then a taxi back to the resort. However, we still have a few questions and hope some of the experts here have the answers to them....

1. If the park opens at 9am (the parks' opening hours for Sept is still not released online yet), what time do you think we should leave the resort? Would 8.30am be okay or should we aim for an earlier time? I would like to be there just before opening.

2. Although it may be more cost effective to travel in a taxi for the four of us, I'm wondering how easy it would be for us to get a taxi back to WDW resort from Universal at the end of the day? We have considered to used a chattered service ie Tiffany towncar service etc (at least we know for sure that the return journey is booked at a certain time and we don't have to worry about waiting for or finding a taxi back to WDW but of course that is also less flexible compared to the taxi option).

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you can assume that the park hours for September will be 9:00 am.

if the taxi drives I4 to the darkside, 30 minutes won't be enough time for you to get there at opening time.

you never know what type of traffic you will hit by leaving the motherland at 8:30.

buy your tickets in advance so you won't have that wait time to buy them when once in the park.

taxis are easy to find.
the TM's will help you get one when you leave the park.

Hi, we're staying at the Royal Pacific next week and 3 of us just decided to split a cab to the resort from MCO, and then again from Universal to WDW because according to online fare calculators, that just seemed the least expensive/most efficient. Our flight gets in around 5pm on Wed and we're planning to leave Universal on Fri around 6pm. What's the traffic like in Orlando?

Hi, we're staying at the Royal Pacific next week and 3 of us just decided to split a cab to the resort from MCO, and then again from Universal to WDW because according to online fare calculators, that just seemed the least expensive/most efficient. Our flight gets in around 5pm on Wed and we're planning to leave Universal on Fri around 6pm. What's the traffic like in Orlando?

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You will be leaving during rush hour so the traffic is going to be bad. I-4 is like a parking lot most afternoons from 4-7:30PM and if there's an accident or broken down car, look out! If you take a cab, make sure the driver doesn't go on I-4 if at all possible...they should know the back roads to get you from Universal to WDW as quickly as possible. Still...you will run into delays around The Crossroads area...just a fact of life.